Iraqi forces attack Camp Ashraf

Conferences

20 November 2012

I come here not as a government official, I come here as a private citizen and I come here as a woman. Because one of the things that has been most striking about the regime in Iran and the Mullahs who control that regime is their treatment of half of their population. A country can be judged by how it treats its women, and a country that represses the freedom, they treat women as if they are chattel without any rights what so ever is an illegitimate government and an illegitimate regime, and when we look to see how that regime will be replaced what a fitting irony if the president elect of the council of Iranian resistance who is a women does not replace those Mullahs in Iran. That is what we want to see. But while we are on that path we must remember the 3000 people who are still captive in camp Liberty, a camp that should not even have the world Liberty in its name. The people of camp Liberty are not free and they will not be free until they are courted the rights of other human beings and until the United Nation does not recognize their rights as refugees. They should be recognized, it should be the position of the United States government to demand of the UN that the UN High Commissionaire for refugees be put in charge of the faith of the people in camp Liberty and that those people in fact be given their liberty by being able to choose where they live. We must continue to carry on this fight, and this fight must lead to regime change in Iran, and it is those in this room, who are the cease of that freedom, and as wonderful as it is that the government of France has given refuge to the resistance movement, I hope the next time we meet will not be in Paris, but in Tehran. Thank you very much.

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Linda Chavez is the former White House director of Public Liaison and the US export of the UN Sub-Commission on Human Rights. Her credibility and her voice for all of us to repeal of FTO was essential and we are very grateful to her.